As we read today’s
Gospel, we should remember the context created for it last week when
Jesus was rejected in his home town. It is the awareness that his
disciples are likely to encounter the same problems that causes
Jesus to take them to one side and instruct them on how they are to
conduct themselves.

He advocates a
great simplicity of life - they should take nothing for the journey
but their walking staff. People are to know that they have nothing -
and must then decide how they are going to welcome them.

Some will open
their homes and their store cupboards and will welcome the disciples
and the message they bring. Others will reject them. They are not,
however, to take the pain of that rejection with them - rather, they
are to shake off the dust from their shoes as a sign that the
hostility stays with the people who exhibited it: being unencumbered
by material goods, the disciples were not to take on burdens of
rejection and unhappiness.

This challenge
must have tested their resolve - and yet, they had travelled with
Jesus and seen that people did respond with hospitality - often
those who were least expected to. The fact that they did go out and
preach and heal suggests that they were well-received in at least
some of the places they went to. They were met with kindness and
faith and their ministry could blossom.

Most of us would
be very reluctant to embark on a discipleship that required us to
leave everything behind and go out into the world with nothing.
Certainly, in more developed countries, we have come to believe that
so many things are “essential” to living that we cannot imagine life
without them.

This is, perhaps,
a lesson people in “poorer” countries can teach us. When you have
very little, you are in one way more vulnerable - but in other ways,
you have a greater freedom to be yourself. You are not concerned
with projecting an image - or trying to convince others that you are
something you are not. You take the risk of allowing people to see
the real you. As Jesus points out, not everyone will respond
favourably - but when they do, you will know that they are
responding to the real you and not simply to affluence or good
impressions. And when they don’t - well, Jesus had a way of dealing
with that too!

What does it mean for me?

How does this Gospel help you to prepare to meet
acceptance or rejection?